Contents

The Research Laboratories were the source of the wondrous technological advancements of Fink Manufacturing such as the studies of ADAM and the development of Vigors, but also the creation of human hybrids like the Handymen and Songbird. Most of their researches were actually stolen by Fink using Tears to other realities, among them Rapture and Suchong's creations. A part of the facilities was shut down long before those events and held the disused Imprinting Studies, quarantined after Songbird's accidental but successful bonding with its test subject in 1896.[1] In July 1912, during the Vox Populi revolution in Columbia, the Factory was invaded by the rebels and the laboratories ransacked. Many guards and scientists were killed in the assault.

Outside the private elevator is a security checkpoint. There are few resources to gather around and a Gun Automaton sweeps the area from a Vox Gunship outside a large broken window. Both corridors lead to different floors of the laboratories. There is also a locker room for the scientists working in this part of the Factory. This is also the only access in and out the Research Laboratories.

This three-story area is where the main laboratories are located, all around a grand atrium with a statue of Fink throning in the middle. The three main floors were used for different purposes. The first floor housed both labs for studies on sea slugs, collected from deep-water explorations and their harvesting of ADAM and a section dedicated to studying quantum physics. The second floor consisted of the Surgical Suite and the third floor held prototyping rooms for new experimental Vigors. Fink had a crisis room built beneath the atrium which contains a few resources and an upgrade for the Ironsides Vigor. One locked door on the ground floor leads to the quarantined Imprinting Studies.

This area is the operating facility of Fink Manufacturing for experimental surgical procedures, notably to transform men into Handyman. It also holds a set of inventory rooms to store their mechanical parts and artificial hearts. Finally, there is also a locked guardroom containing several collectibles along with the second upgrade for Ironsides. A vent coming from this place leads to the corridor outside the Imprinting Studies.

The entrance to the studies is guarded by a lone Gun Automaton, but the main access and security booth are locked behind quarantine door. Vox fighters debarked inside by flying on a barge and breaking the windows, though they were dealt with the automaton as soon as entered. Elizabeth gets inside by swinging on Sky-Hook hanging points outside the building and through the windows of the observation & engineering study.

The labs have been gathering dust, but all the models, experiments and studies have been left intact, such as sketches and short replicas of Fink's Songbird and Suchong's Big Daddies, but also dead animal test subjects. Large tanks of green liquid contain several dead dogs having failed the imprinting procedure. The rooms hold a live prototype of Songbird, watching endlessly a mind-inducing film to bond with its past test subject. In another study is a film of how Songbird eventually bonded to a young Elizabeth after crashing down into Monument Tower. Nearby is the hair sample Elizabeth was looking for, a cut of her own hair from when she was a child. The console inside the control room lifts the quarantine but also allow the Vox Populi to enter.

One of the discarded Vigors in the hub's laboratories has the regular bottle design of Plasmids and Gene Tonics from Rapture.

Some of the Big Daddy sketches are actually original artwork from BioShock,[citation needed] one of which depicts the Slow-Pro Protector which was eventually discarded and reused later in BioShock 2 for the Rumbler.